


Ikea is a Metaphor

by Tsaiko



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Compare and Contrast, IKEA Furniture, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 13:19:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17746646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsaiko/pseuds/Tsaiko
Summary: It's amazing how two different versions of the same person from alternate universes can have two different viewpoints. Even more amazing when they're thinking about Ikea furniture.





	Ikea is a Metaphor

**Author's Note:**

> You can always tell when I'm putting together Ikea furniture, because I have a tendency to come up with Ikea furniture fic for whatever fandom I'm into at the time. Don't ask me. I don't know either.

Papyrus hated Ikea furniture. 

Mere furniture shouldn't be able to defeat someone as Great as him, but Ikea furniture managed. It was aggravating. All the pieces and directions were like a puzzle and Papyrus was good at puzzles! Witness all the puzzle he had built in Snowdin Forest to confound and capture the human! But Ikea... it just didn't make sense to him.

Which was ridiculous, because puzzling out instructions and engineering solutions was something he did. It was a core feature of a Papyrus. Yet he always seemed to struggle. Papyrus found it disheartening, but he always did his best to push through.

Sans tried to help. He always looked through the instructions with Papyrus, and helped him make notes on what seemed to be the challenging or unclear bits. Sans definitely seemed to be able to match the screws and various parts to the diagrams better than Papyrus could. Something about spatial awareness and being able to visualize in three dimensions. But... but...

But the puns. So many puns. There was something about putting furniture together that just lent itself to puns. The names of all the furniture didn't help. Papyrus couldn't be 100% sure, but the names of everything didn't seem to be real words. In any language. He had the suspicion that they were jokes that he just didn't get.

Eventually Papyrus would get frustrated and upset, and Sans would get frustrated and upset because Papyrus was frustrated and upset. They would get the furniture together. Eventually. And twisting himself into awkward positions to get everything put together or to get at that one final screw did not help.

The results at the end weren't bad. They just were a bit... bland. Perfectly usable, reasonably priced, and on the whole well thought out. Just not his taste. Too clean. Too modern. There was no special touches that made it each piece unique. Everyone had Ikea furniture. It was ubiquitous and definitely not worth the extra effort.

So no, Papyrus did not like Ikea furniture.

Not one bit.

\---

Edge liked Ikea furniture.

It wasn't his first love. Or his second. It didn't even make his top ten list really. But there was something about the twisted and confounding nature of the wordless instructions and the inconsistently labelled parts that reminded him of the byzantine bureaucracy and arbitrariness of Underfell. It was like being home without having to taste the dust in the air or worry about getting stabbed in the back. A strange, kind of fond nostalgia that Edge would never have felt about Underfell otherwise.

Figuring out how to put the furniture together was like a puzzle. Part engineering, part following instructions, and part being able to wing it when those instructions just didn't make sense. It was a core feature of a Papyrus to be able to adapt as far as Edge was concerned. Even when he struggled, he could find a way to overcome his enemies. Or in this case, put together a "bookcase" that more closely resembled an M. C. Escher than something a piece of furniture.

Red always helped. He followed Edge's orders in a way he hadn't done since they had left home. Even in above ground, Red still called Edge "Boss" but when they worked together to get a job done, it seemed to mean more. His brother was always more spatially inclined then him, and Red had no problem picturing how pieces went together during those times when Edge got stuck. Sometimes it was to have someone who spatial awareness was so good that he could teleport to any place he'd been to just once.

Unfortunately, there was something about putting furniture that just lent itself to puns. So many puns. Edge would have thought that there was only so many jokes to be made about "screws" and "getting nailed." Yet somehow Red always managed to come up with new ones. Sometimes Edge suspected that Sans was helping Red come up with new ones. It seemed like the kind of thing Sans would do, since there was no way he'd make such vulgar jokes around his own brother.

Eventually, Edge would get tired of Red's puns. A quick shake by the collar or a smack on the back of the head got him an apology and a few moments of peace before Red started up again. There was no intent behind it. Red's HP never dropped. He even let Red curse as much as he wanted when he had to contort himself into some odd position to get at a screw. It only made sense. There was no way Edge could do it without hurting his back, and though he rarely showed it, Red loved him too much to want him in any sort of pain.

Ikea furniture was not the best furniture. Even Edge could see that. It was usable, reasonably priced, and well thought out. Edge liked the clean look of it, the fact that so much of it matched in a way that made even pieces from separate lines look like they belonged together. He had lived with barely functioning, odds and ends most of his life. The furniture was just things, but it soothed something in Edge's soul to have their house filled with stuff that looked like it belonged there.

It might not be perfect, but it was theirs.

It was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Last night I was channeling Papyrus while trying to put together furniture. It was frustrating as Hell. I had a second piece to put together, but I was so annoyed, I decided to wait till this morning. This morning it seems like I’m channeling Edge, because that sucker (essentially the same damn piece) went together in 10 minutes tops.
> 
> It's been a while since I wrote a compare/contrast piece. I like how this went (and how quickly it was to write).


End file.
